FireChat and Wireless Mesh Networking
A curious download hit Apple’s app store this week: a messaging app called FireChat.
It’s a new kind of app because it uses an iOS feature unavailable until version 7: the Multipeer Connectivity Framework. The app was developed by the crowdsourced connectivity provider Open Garden and this is their first iOS app.
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But here’s the really big deal — it can enable two users to chat not only without an Internet connection, but also when they are far beyond WiFi and Bluetooth range from each other — connected with a chain of peer-to-peer users between one user and a far-away Internet connection.
Update (2014-04-28): Edge Cases 89:
Wolf Rentzsch talks to Andrew Pontious about Apple’s new promising but troubled Multipeer Connectivity framework and his new app that takes advantage of it: Rumor Monger.